Tory candidate claims he was turfed for not following ad scheme

OTTAWA -- As Prime Minister Stephen Harper shrugged off headlines reporting on allegations that his party broke federal laws in the 2006 election, a former Conservative candidate says he refused to go along with the party’s in-and-out financing scheme because he didn’t think it passed the smell test.

David Marler, who ran in a Quebec Eastern Townships riding, believes that decision may have cost him the chance to be the Conservative candidate in the next election.

Mr. Marler, a Knowlton lawyer, says he was told by party officials in January that they did not want him as a candidate, despite the fact he had been informally campaigning for months. While they refused to give any reason for their decision, Mr. Marler believes it could have been because the party was still upset over his refusal to allow money to be transferred in and out of his campaign account in 2006.

He said the party preferred Mark Quinlan, aide to Christian Paradis, secretary of state for agriculture, who was more likely to do their bidding.

“Mark is a nice young man but he is an employee of the party, so I guess they presume that Mark would do what he was told.”

The Conservatives, however, curtly dismiss any suggestion that refusing the transfer cost Mr. Marler the nomination.

Mr. Marler’s name surfaced this week in documents that were filed in the Superior Court of Ontario to support Election Canada’s application for a warrant to search Conservative Party of Canada headquarters in Ottawa.

Elections Canada alleged in its application for a warrant that the Conservatives spent more than the legal limit on their 2006 national campaign by transferring money in and then out of local campaigns to pay for advertising.

More than 700 pages of court records were made public this week in which the Commissioner of Canada Elections, the non-partisan enforcement officer within Elections Canada, alleged that the agent for Harper’s party in the last general election “made materially false and misleading statements” on its financial returns. The commissioner also alleged that the party itself and its agent, the Conservative Fund of Canada, exceeded the legal limit for spending in the last general election.

Flanked by U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the closing news conference for their summit in New Orleans, Mr. Harper was asked about the allegations.

“This is the same story as before,” Mr. Harper said. “Elections Canada’s view is that some our local spending should count as national spending. We have a different view. We looked into this at the time and that’s the view we’ve taken.”

The court records released this week show that, at the time, some within the party and some working for the party were worried that it was the wrong view.

One e-mail that is part of that court record has a senior advertising executive writing to party officials to say, “While our thinking is that this option would be legal, we are not certain beyond all reasonable doubt.”

The prime minister on Tuesday said his party did not violate the Canada Elections Act.

“Our position is always that we always follow the law as we understand it. More importantly, we always follow the law as it’s been interpreted. We were following, in the last election, the interpretations that had been put on that law in the past. If those interpretations change we’ll, of course, conform but we’ll expect the same rules for every single party,” Mr. Harper said.

Mr. Marler, said in his case it all began in December 2005 when he received a telephone call from Nelson Bouffard, a Conservative party organizer in Montreal responsible for his riding.

“He phoned me up and said, ‘I just want to let you know, that the party is going to deposit $30,000 in your campaign account in the next day or two and then withdraw it immediately. We just wanted to let you know that so you don’t fuss about it. It’s just an in and out.”

“I said to him, Well what’s that about? He said, ‘Don’t you worry about it. It’s just going to happen and it has nothing to do with you.”

“I said it does have something to do with me because that is my campaign account and I’ve got to make sure that it is managed properly.”

“He said ‘This is the party speaking, Mr. Marler. We do what we like.”

“I said, I’m sorry, I’m not going to permit that to happen unless I understand exactly what it is.”

Not long after that, Mr. Marler got a call from another organizer Michel Rivard, saying the money would be used for publicity that would benefit the riding. However, Mr. Marler said he still couldn’t get a straight answer on why the money would have to be transferred in and then out of his campaign account. Still unsatisfied by the explanations, Mr. Marler again refused to take part in the plan to transfer money.

Mr. Marler remains convinced the decision he took was the same one “any honest and straightforward person” would take.

Mr. Marler heard nothing more until January when he was suddenly told the party didn’t want him as a candidate and asked him to withdraw in favour of Mr. Quinlan.

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